If you got the letter closing your Lloyds Avios Rewards Amex card, what should you do?

12 March 2019 By Rob

Links on Head for Points pay us an affiliate commission.
A list of our partners is here.

After a bit of a lull, Lloyds Bank has sent out what is probably the final batch of letters to holders of the legacy Lloyds Avios Rewards credit cards. The cards close 60 days after your letter was dated.

The Lloyds Avios Rewards American Express and Mastercard package will be replaced with a new Lloyds Avios Rewards Mastercard. There will be no American Express element.

What is best replacement for the Lloyds Avios Rewards Amex card?

I thought I’d run through your options.

In summary, this is what will happen when your card is switched to the new Mastercard:

the upgrade voucher is dead (you will be allowed to earn one for your current card year)

there will no longer be an annual fee, saving £24

there will be foreign exchange fees of 3%

This is the earnings rate on the new Lloyds Avios Rewards Mastercard:

0.4 Avios per £1 you spend in the UK

0.8 Avios per £1 you spend outside the UK

0.4 Avios per £1 transferred on a balance transfer

Because the Mastercard element of the old Avios Rewards cards was so poor, this actually represents an improvement. You currently get 0.2 Avios per £1 on the Mastercard in the UK and 0.4 Avios per £1 elsewhere.

The balance transfer option is a great deal when Lloyds runs its occasional ‘no fee’ promotions. You move as much money as you can, pay it off the same day and pocket a big pile of Avios!

Holders of a Club Lloyds current account will earn an extra 0.1 Avios per £1 (0.2 Avios per £1 for foreign transactions). This takes you up to 0.5 Avios per £1 for UK spending and 1 Avios per £1 for foreign spending. For this to kick in, you must have had a Club Lloyds current account for at least six months.

Will the new free ‘Mastercard only’ Lloyds Avios Rewards card open to new applicants?

It isn’t clear. I asked Avios this last week and my contact said that he hadn’t heard of anything, so the answer looks like ‘No’ in the medium term.

Now that avios.com is closed it is very possible that BA’s agreement with American Express forbids it from actively promoting any other credit card which directly earns Avios.

Is the Lloyds Avios Rewards card worth keeping as a Mastercard?

If you want to earn Avios, yes. It is more generous than the Tesco Clubcard Mastercard (0.3 Avios per £1). The HSBC Premier cards are better (0.5 Avios per £1 on the free card, 1 per £1 on the paid card) but HSBC Premier has tough income and asset criteria and requires you to have a current account with them.

There is also going to be a formal announcement soon about a partnership between Avios and NatWest / Royal Bank of Scotland MyRewards. Holders of NatWest credit cards may or may not currently see Avios as a redemption option for their MyRewards credit.

What is the best replacement American Express card?

If you have been using the American Express element of the Lloyds Avios Rewards cards for your daily spending, you will need a replacement. Assuming that you want to keep earning Avios, here are your FIVE options ranked in order of sign-up bonus:

(free, earns 1 Avios per £1 with a 10000 point bonus for spending £15000 in a year, representative APR 57.6% variable including the annual fee (free in year 1) based on a notional £1,200 credit limit,my Amex Gold review)

(free, earns 1 Avios per £1, APR and sign-up bonus depends on which of the three versions you get, my Amex Rewards review)

In my view, these are the best two options:

British Airways Premium Plus American Express – the No 1 attraction is the 2-4-1 voucher that you receive for spending £10,000 each year. This is valid on Avios redemptions in ALL classes and saves you, for eg, 150,000 Avios on two Club World peak day tickets to San Francisco. Coupled with a high earnings rate, all serious Avios collectors should have one of these.

(If you travel solo, though, ignore it as the 2-4-1 has no value to you. Similarly, if you cannot spend £10,000 per year on the Amex to trigger the voucher then look elsewhere and save £195. You also need to be certain that you can generate enough Avios per year to use the 241 voucher effectively – although reading HFP will make that easier!)

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold – this card offers the most generous sign-up bonus for a free card. You receive 20,000 Amex points for signing up (=20,000 Avios) and there is no fee for Year 1 (£140 thereafter). You also receive two Lounge Club airport lounge passes among other benefits.

American Express Platinum – you should consider applying for this card if you think you can get value from the travel benefits. Focus on the 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus, the Priority Pass for airline lounge access, Eurostar lounge access, Marriott Bonvoy Gold, Hilton Honors Gold, Shangri-La Jade, Melia Rewards Gold and the Radisson Rewards Gold cards. Many people find that they end up keeping the card despite their initial intentions because of the value of the travel insurance, lounge access and other perks. For day to day spending, 1 point (= 1 Avios) per £1 is a bit of a joke considering the annual fee.

Starwood SPG American Express – the day-to-day earnings rate of 3 Marriott Bonvoy points (= 1 Avios) per £1 isn’t bad and you get the flexibility to convert to 40+ different airlines as well as using your points for Marriott hotels. You also get an enhanced conversion rate of 1.25 Avios per £1 when you convert in chunks of 60,000 points. The sign-up bonus is 30,000 points, which converts to 10,000 Avios. The £75 annual fee is refunded pro-rata if you cancel. For long term use, this card would be exceptional if it was free but the £75 fee curtails its value. All cardholders get Marriott Bonvoy Silver Elite status.

Amex Rewards Credit Card – this is the only ‘free for life’ Amex card which earns Membership Rewards points. You get 1 point per £1 and these convert 1:1 into Avios BUT you can also use them for other airline schemes or transfers to Hilton, Radisson and Marriott. This card is better than the free British Airways American Express if you won’t spend £20,000 to trigger the 2-4-1 voucher because, whilst both are free and earn 1 Avios per £1, Amex Rewards gives you alternative reward options. The downside of the Amex Rewards Credit Card is that holding it stops you getting a sign-up bonus if you take out an Amex Gold or Amex Platinum card.

Don’t forget that our directory of all UK airline and hotel credit cards can be found here.

Disclaimer: Head for Points is a journalistic website. Nothing here should be construed as financial advice, and it is your own responsibility to ensure that any product is right for your circumstances. Recommendations are based primarily on the ability to earn miles and points and do not consider interest rates, service levels or any impact on your credit history. By recommending credit cards on this site, I am – technically – acting as a credit broker. Robert Burgess, trading as Head for Points, is regulated and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a credit broker.

We help business and leisure travellers maximise their Avios, frequent flyer miles and hotel loyalty points. Visit every day for three new articles or sign up for our FREE emails via this page or the box to your right.

I think Horizon is one of the best products on the market for FX spending and cash withdrawals abroad PLUS 0.5% cash back (terms have been squeezed a bit recently but their offering is still good). It gets less coverage on HfP than it deserves, imho

Probably as it’s a legacy product not open to new applicants I guess? I’ve still got a 0% balance on it, will probably hang on to it once that’s paid off in the summer though, might get the limit dropped a bit tho.

If you read the other posts, you get 60 days notice of the card closure, and then the opportunity to earn an upgrade voucher before the end of your renewal year (April to April for you). The expiry date on your current card doesn’t come into it.

Haven’t got my letter yet but sounds promising as just into new year – would be great if it meant I had until March next year to hit spend as could put most spend on Amex (for higher earning rate) while I still have it delay voucher issuance for ages 🙂

No letter for me either. I tend to spend around £7-£10k a month on the card (mostly Amex use), so I thought I’d have been a priority to close, as it must be costing them money with the new low interchange fees. Will be annoyed to see this go, will definitely miss the Avios earning on the commission free foreign spend.

I have the Lloyds Bank Avios Rewards card with a low limit (~£5k) and I just logged in via the mobile app and i have a 0% fee, 4.9% interest rate balance transfer offer. After the card changes to the new Avios can I preload the account with cash and transfer my end of year tax payment from IHG (via Curve) and double up the points earn without any cost?

Sad to say got my letter yesterday, I’ll miss this card. For me it’s a choice between IHG/Virgin linked to Curve, or Amex Gold. The problem with Curve is that it its unreliable, and I found myself in the USA mostly giving up and just using the Lloyds Amex. Also, Curve not much use for car rental as it’s a debit card. Amex Gold using Harry’s view that 2.67% of the 3% fee is offset in rewards, although I’m not sure that’s really true, as I reckon to hit the £15K spend in the UK anyway. Decisions decisions. Will check Tandem out that gets mentioned, or maybe a Halifax Clarity.

Some adblockers stop articles on Head for Points from displaying properly. If some words or pictures appear to be missing when you read, you will need to whitelist the site to fix the problem. Thank you.

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies to improve your experience. This includes using an affiliate tracking cookie if you click an external link. You can block cookies via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. AcceptRejectRead More